Philosophy, Physics and Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century Scotland and Ireland
Monday 20 October, 6.00pm
Kings College Conference Centre, University of Aberdeen
In his lecture, Professor Craig will discuss the influence of science on intellectual thought in nineteenth-century Scotland and Ireland. Between 1850 and 1890, these two countries – in the persons of Lord Kelvin, Peter Guthrie Tait, and James Clerk Maxwell – were responsible for the development of the new science of energy.
Yet this period is generally regarded as one of intellectual decline in Scotland (the ‘blackout’ of the Enlightenment), as well as intellectual escapism in Ireland, characterised W.B. Yeats’ interest in magic. Tracing the influence of the new physics on philosophy, and on the development of fantasy literature (George MacDonald, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.M. Barrie, W.B. Yeats), the lecture will reconsider the achievements of late nineteenth century Scottish and Irish culture.
Professor Cairns Craig was formerly Professor of Scottish and Modern Literature at the University of Edinburgh. Cairns Craig took up Directorship of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen in 2005. He is author of ‘Out of History’ (1996), ‘The Modern Scottish Novel’ (1999), ‘Associationism and the Literary Imagination’ (2007), and general editor of the ‘History of Scottish Literature’ (1987-9). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy, he was awarded an OBE in 2007 for services to literature and education
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